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Qaeda man pleads guilty to bomb NY subways

April 24, 2010 16:11 IST

An accomplice of Al Qaeda associate Najibullah Zazi has pleaded guilty to a plot that involved bombing New York City subways and also admitted to a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Zarein Ahmedzay, 25, also admitted of targeting Times Square and Grand Central, in a New York federal district court.

Ahmedzay told the Brooklyn court that he had received orders from the Al-Qaeda leaders to carry out the foiled plot in September 2009 to bomb Manhattan subway lines.

He also pleaded guilty to providing material support to Al Qaida. Zazi pleaded guilty in February.

Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, 25, were indicted on charges similar to Zazi's conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to murder in a foreign country, and providing material support for a foreign terrorist organisation.

Out of two co-conspirators, Ahmedzay has admitted to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Ahmedzay, Zazi and Medunjanin went to high school together in Queens, New York.

"Your honour, I strongly urge the American people to stop supporting the war against Islam. It would be in their interest," Ahmedzay said in Brooklyn Federal Court, according to the NY Daily News.

"I'm thankful for myself that I did not do anything to harm anyone. But I fear someone else might do the same." He added that the "real enemy of this country are the ones destroying the country from within.

"I believe it's a special group - Zionist Jews, I believe, who want a permanent shadow government."

The 25-year-old shuttle driver from Colorado, Zazi pleaded previously admitted to being trained along with other men from New York by al Qaeda in Pakistan.

"During the training, Al Qaeda leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct martyrdom operations. We agreed to this plan," Zazi told the courtroom in February.

"I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the US military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan by sacrificing my soul for the sake of saving other souls," he added.

The prosecutors allege that on August 28, 2008, both Ahmedzay and Medunjanin accompanied Zazi on a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, NJ to Peshawar, Pakistan, where they were trained by the Al Qaeda.

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